Former Kirkwood ticket discusses political future

The trees are in bloom, baseball is back and the campaign is finally over.

It’s been nearly a month since the Kirkwood ticket was defeated by iUnity in the IU Student Association election.

After reflecting on their experiences in the intense and often personal campaign, members of the defeated ticket considered the possibility of finding their way back to IUSA by another road.

For sophomore Chris Bailey, working with his opponents, President-Elect and junior Michael Coleman and Vice President-Elect and junior Peter SerVaas, in the executive branch simply wasn’t an option.

“Working directly with SerVaas and Coleman is something I don’t think I could do,” Bailey said.

He served as chief of staff on the Kirkwood ticket and worked for the defeated Red-Hot ticket during the 2009 campaign. Although Bailey is not interested in working with IUSA’s new executive administration, he said he’d be open to the possibility of working in Congress.

Bailey said he spent this election cycle dealing with political “drama” as a result of interactions with the iUnity ticket, as well as controlling public relations and marketing for his own ticket.

Sophomore Kadi Mancuso also worked on Kirkwood’s campaign, as an events
coordinator. Although the ticket didn’t win, Mancuso was elected to a congressional position as a School of Public and Environmental Affairs representative.

Mancuso said it might be difficult to work with iUnity representatives in Congress, but that the campaign taught her how to work with opponents and “form a professional relationship.”

Yet Bailey said he happily accepted the challenge of dealing with less professional “drama” because he believed it was his responsibility. That way, Bailey said, executives could devote more of their time to external campaigning.

“They were the happy pretty faces of Kirkwood, and I was the one who was stressed out,” Bailey said.

Sophomore Justin Kingsolver was one of those faces.

Kingsolver was Kirkwood’s candidate for president. He said he estimates he spent more than 600 hours campaigning, gave more than 100 speeches and had days where he attended as many as 13 or 14 meetings or events.

“It was a completely consuming process from basically November, December to the campaign,” Kingsolver said.

After pouring such an effort into something, Kingsolver said, the loss was inherently disappointing. Now, he’s focusing on opportunities outside of the executive branch.

Kingsolver is currently a member of the IUSA Congress representing the College of Arts and Sciences. Because he ran for an executive position, he was not reelected to his congressional seat.

However, Kingsolver said he’s been made Vice President for Congress-Elect Jen Peterson, aware that he’d be willing to fill an open position in Congress if one becomes available. Kingsolver said he appreciates that Congress is more accessible to its student constituents than most executive positions.

Kingsolver also said he’s not interested in working as a member of iUnity’s executive administration, except to help develop projects he promoted during his campaign or to work in an advisory capacity.

“I don’t think that it’s my place to serve in the administration of the person who beat me,” Kingsolver said.

Despite the loss, Kingsolver said he learned valuable lessons about team building, public speaking, fundraising, leadership and motivation, skills he hopes to use in a future career involving politics. He’s the current chairman of the IU College Republicans and he said he hopes to find other ways to be involved in politics and government on campus.

In the next two years, Kingsolver said the question of whether he will run another campaign for student body president will be a hard one to answer.

“It would be really hard, now that I’ve seen the blood, toil, tears and sweat that it takes,” Kingsolver said. “It would be really hard.”